Small Traditions LLC/SCANDAL UPDATE

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by Snowman

How successful was this auction site before that though? Was he a real player in this space? I'd never even heard of them before BODA posted about it.

If the site did not somehow mysteriously vanish you could see his prices realized and could see he was raking it in. He sold odd ball stuff and got more than every last penny for what he sold.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

If the site did not somehow mysteriously vanish you could see his prices realized and could see he was raking it in. He sold odd ball stuff and got more than every last penny for what he sold.

Not to mention you can make a lot of money buying cards in one grade and selling them in another.

[packs]

This notion that PWCC was or is a threat to eBay's business is absurd. eBay does not only sell sports memorabilia and the sports memorabilia it does sell makes up a fraction of it's entire revenue. There is no competing with eBay. It's like saying Yahoo is competing with Google. They both exist, but they're not in competition with each other.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by packs

This notion that PWCC was or is a threat to eBay's business is absurd. eBay does not only sell sports memorabilia and the sports memorabilia it does sell makes up a fraction of it's entire revenue. There is no competing with eBay. It's like saying Yahoo is competing with Google. They both exist, but they're not in competition with each other.

I think I posted somewhere that eBay's annual revenues are something like 10 BILLION dollars. There surely is a backstory here, though what it is we don't know, yet anyhow.

[packs]

I'm sure there is more to the story but it will have nothing to do with this idea that PWCC was starting a competing platform and eBay booted them before they could be bankrupted by it.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by packs

I'm sure there is more to the story but it will have nothing to do with this idea that PWCC was starting a competing platform and eBay booted them before they could be bankrupted by it.

If I had to guess at this point, I would guess that ebay wanted to dissociate itself from PWCC and Brent because bad things are going to happen to them on the legal front. Just a guess.

[packs]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

If I had to guess at this point, I would guess that ebay wanted to dissociate itself from PWCC and Brent because bad things are going to happen to them on the legal front. Just a guess.

That would be my guess. I don't have a guess as to why people want to portray the PWCC platform as being more than it is though.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by packs

This notion that PWCC was or is a threat to eBay's business is absurd. eBay does not only sell sports memorabilia and the sports memorabilia it does sell makes up a fraction of it's entire revenue. There is no competing with eBay. It's like saying Yahoo is competing with Google. They both exist, but they're not in competition with each other.

Of course PWCC is a threat to ebay's business. They did something like 150 million in revenue in just the first half of 2021 alone. And all those cards that they're selling are in their possession, in their vault. They weren't just the largest seller of sports cards on ebay, they were the largest seller by a long shot. They were also one of ebay's largest sellers in any category, not just cards. When PWCC launches their new platform, they're taking that business with them. Ebay stands to lose a significant revenue stream if those cards are no longer being sold on their platform. Is it going to bankrupt eBay? No, of course not. But it's definitely a kick in the balls to their wallet. Plus, if PWCC is successful, and if they are able to provide a platform with even lower selling fees, they could end up gaining a much larger share of that market in the future. It is without question in ebay's best interest to do whatever they can to ensure this doesn't happen. Ebay is also well known for playing dirty. Cutting off their competition and capping them at the knees by sending out an email blast to all of PWCC's buyers is precisely the sort of calculated move I would expect from eBay. They've earned their reputation for a reason. As has PWCC. Which of the various theories, if any, turn out to be true in the end, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. But you'd be foolish to think that PWCC poses no threat to ebay's business. Even myslabs.com poses a threat to ebay. Hell, myslabs just cost ebay $350 yesterday when I sold just one card on their platform that I otherwise would have sold through ebay. Those fees add up quick.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by Snowman

Of course PWCC is a threat to ebay's business. They did something like 150 million in revenue in just the first half of 2021 alone. And all those cards that they're selling are in their possession, in their vault. They weren't just the largest seller of sports cards on ebay, they were the largest seller by a long shot. They were also one of ebay's largest sellers in any category, not just cards. When PWCC launches their new platform, they're taking that business with them. Ebay stands to lose a significant revenue stream if those cards are no longer being sold on their platform. Is it going to bankrupt eBay? No, of course not. But it's definitely a kick in the balls to their wallet. Plus, if PWCC is successful, and if they are able to provide a platform with even lower selling fees, they could end up gaining a much larger share of that market in the future. It is without question in ebay's best interest to do whatever they can to ensure this doesn't happen. Ebay is also well known for playing dirty. Cutting off their competition and capping them at the knees by sending out an email blast to all of PWCC's buyers is precisely the sort of calculated move I would expect from eBay. They've earned their reputation for a reason. As has PWCC. Which of the various theories, if any, turn out to be true in the end, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. But you'd be foolish to think that PWCC poses no threat to ebay's business. Even myslabs.com poses a threat to ebay. Hell, myslabs just cost ebay $350 yesterday when I sold just one card on their platform that I otherwise would have sold through ebay. Those fees add up quick.

What? If PWCC did 150 million in gross sales on eBay, what percentage of those sales do you think eBay kept? Let's say it was 5% across the board and that would be a very high number, I think. That is 7.5 million of eBay's over 10 billion in gross revenue. I would not call that a threat to eBay's bottom line...in the least. They already forgot he is gone.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

What? If PWCC did 150 million in gross sales on eBay, what percentage of those sales do you think eBay kept? Let's say it was 5% across the board and that would be a very high number, I think. That is 7.5 million of eBay's over 10 billion in gross revenue. I would not call that a threat to eBay's bottom line...in the least. They already forgot he is gone.

The threat isn't necessarily that they take a large chunk of Ebay's business, the threat is that they are successful, which inspires more and more people and groups to think about taking things off Ebay. Ebay already has enough competition, and they aren't wilingly looking for more. They've been moving away from their auction format for quite a few years now. Talk has been they'd like to be more like Amazon for quite a while now with BIN listings seeming to outpace the auctions by 10X - 20X, at least for baseball cards. Will also be interesting to see if PWWC maintains an auction only strategy on their new platform, or also allow consignors to do BINs as well.

Don't forget, if PWCC can sell on their own platform they cut out Ebay fees. They can probably pass some portion of that fee reduction on as savings to their consignors/customers and lure away product from Ebay. And regardless of whether you like them or not, if PWCC can lure away the product, the buyers will follow. That could become a blueprint for other big Ebay sellers in different categories to possibly observe and mimic, a trend Ebay would not care to see start. Pure speculation though, but plausible.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by BobC

The threat isn't necessarily that they take a large chunk of Ebay's business, the threat is that they are successful, which inspires more and more people and groups to think about taking things off Ebay. Ebay already has enough competition, and they aren't wilingly looking for more. They've been moving away from their auction format for quite a few years now. Talk has been they'd like to be more like Amazon for quite a while now with BIN listings seeming to outpace the auctions by 10X - 20X, at least for baseball cards. Will also be interesting to see if PWWC maintains an auction only strategy on their new platform, or also allow consignors to do BINs as well.

Don't forget, if PWCC can sell on their own platform they cut out Ebay fees. They can probably pass some portion of that fee reduction on as savings to their consignors/customers and lure away product from Ebay. And regardless of whether you like them or not, if PWCC can lure away the product, the buyers will follow. That could become a blueprint for other big Ebay sellers in different categories to possibly observe and mimic, a trend Ebay would not care to see start. Pure speculation though, but plausible.

I feel this is oversimplifying what it takes to move to your own platform. I doubt most sellers on eBay would want to take on the responsibility on maintaining what it takes to drive traffic to them while still being able to focus on their primary purpose of being in business. Going to take much more than being inspired. If it didn't then many sellers would have done it long ago. I am not defending eBay as a great venue or well run business but I doubt many sellers would have the ability to sustain their businesses without eBay.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

I feel this is oversimplifying what it takes to move to your own platform. I doubt most sellers on eBay would want to take on the responsibility on maintaining what it takes to drive traffic to them while still being able to focus on their primary purpose of being in business. Going to take much more than being inspired. If it didn't then many sellers would have done it long ago. I am not defending eBay as a great venue or well run business but I doubt many sellers would have the ability to sustain their businesses without eBay.

Oh, I'm not saying it is or would ever be easy, but if someone the size of PWCC could take a stab at it, who's to say they couldn't in the future branch out to other sales areas/categories as well, and slowly take away more and more business from Ebay. Don't we often see posts about how many people dislike Ebay and the latest thing they've done that no one wants or likes? So what if someone like PWCC sets up something that many see as similar to, but cheaper and better than Ebay? I could see them maybe adding more categories of items to be selling over time, and slowly start to take more and more business from Ebay. It is always a possibility, and one I wouldn't be surprised if Ebay took very seriously.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Originally Posted by BobC

Don't forget, if PWCC can sell on their own platform they cut out Ebay fees. They can probably pass some portion of that fee reduction on as savings to their consignors/customers and lure away product from Ebay.

There is no way they are saving money using their own platform over the sweetheart fees they had with ebay. The costs are tremendous.

No design, no maintenance, no hosting and on and on.

[Gorditadogg]

Just to make sure we all understand the scale.

ebay had $5.3 billion of revenue the first half of this year and $1.5 billion of operating income. PWCC's contribution to ebay's revenue was about $0.007 billion and maybe $0.002 billion to income*. A drop in the bucket.

*PWCC reported $150 million of sales for the first half of 2021. ebay was charging PWCC fees of less than 5%, according to ebay, which would about $7 million at the most, and probably a lot less. At a 28% average margin to revenue, ebay's operating income on PWCC business would have been about $2 million (or $0.002 billion).

Bottom line: ebay doesn't give a flying fig about PWCC.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

There is no way they are saving money using their own platform over the sweetheart fees they had with ebay. The costs are tremendous.

No design, no maintenance, no hosting and on and on.

Don't disagree at all Scott, but then why would PWCC have been working on their own platform already? If they had such a sweet deal with lower Ebay fees in the first place, and costs for setting up and then running their own platform would be so exorbitant, why would they have ever thought of operating outside of Ebay? If it ends up costing them so much more to operate their own platform, one would think they would have to charge more to their consignors to cover their costs then, or end up settling for making less money.

And you know how some people/consignors can be when it comes to even a slight increase in costs, they immediately start looking for a cheaper alternative. I don't know if Probstein has the same sweet deal PWCC did regarding Ebay fees. But if PWCC does end up having to charge more to their consignors going forward to cover the operating costs of their own online platform, couldn't this possibly cause some PWCC longtime consignors to maybe start consigning to Probstein, or others who sell on Ebay, instead?

That's why I was thinking PWCC may have figured out a way to operate their own platform at a more reasonable cost than Ebay. I know it isn't cheap to operate their own platform, but PWCC is not ignorant when it comes to running their business. Of course they weren't expecting the boot from Ebay, so maybe that has screwed up their plans on how they were going to run their new platform more than we'll ever likely know. Will be curious to see how PWCC's new platform will actually operate. Will it be like Ebay auctions or more like an online store with mostly BIN pricing, does anybody really know yet? I guess time will tell.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

What? If PWCC did 150 million in gross sales on eBay, what percentage of those sales do you think eBay kept? Let's say it was 5% across the board and that would be a very high number, I think. That is 7.5 million of eBay's over 10 billion in gross revenue. I would not call that a threat to eBay's bottom line...in the least. They already forgot he is gone.

This was in just the first 6 months of 2021. And in a growing market. They were on pace to probably do upwards of 350 million in revenue this year on ebay. You're fooling yourself if you think eBay doesn't care about that revenue. It was one of their top 10 accounts in all of eBay. They care. This decision was 100% discussed with and strategized by all of the top executives at eBay. Probably at great length. Their legal team, CEO, and CFO all thought deeply about this issue without question, whatever that issue was. Obviously, ebay will do just fine without PWCC. They'd even do just fine without the entire sports card industry. But you shouldn't conflate that with the idea that they don't care about losing one of their largest accounts or that they couldn't be bothered by the idea of PWCC creating a competing platform to take away "their" customers. I promise you, they care.

I work for a company that has a similar grip on a different market like eBay has in theirs (and our market cap is triple that of eBay's). There are a handful of other companies that try to do what we do, but none of them come even remotely close to our capabilities and volume. We are orders of magnitude larger than all of our competitors combined. But I promise you, we definitely care what they're doing and we pay close attention to all of them. Only a fool wouldn't.

Say what you want about PWCC, but scandals aside, one thing is certain. They've built a remarkable brand in this hobby in a fairly short amount of time. They have catapulted themselves to the very top of the sports card industry, and the owners are extremely driven and creative. Perhaps all these rumors about them are true, in which case they'll burn down in flames. But if they're not true, then I wouldn't want to bet against them. They took consignments to a new level. They invented the vault. They launched a premier auction platform and broke records right out of the gate. They've built arguably the best database for card sales that exists online, and they're launching a new platform to compete against eBay with lower tier cards next month. They continue to innovate more and more every year. People like that don't just stop creating new products and expanding. They don't just suddenly become content. They are greedy. They are driven by the desire to succeed and will pursue it at any cost. Today, it's sports cards, but tomorrow it might be sports cards and comics, and the next day it's cards, comics, Pokémon, video games, and coins. I promise you, eBay execs aren't stupid. They see the threat for what it is, and it's not just a few million dollars per year in lost revenue.

I'll make a prediction. Come back and visit this thread in 5 years. Either they'll be in jail, or they'll be a huge competitor to eBay in this space within 5 years, and they will have already expanded into other collectibles markets by then as well, and will continue to develop more tools and resources for the market and their customers as well.

[carlsonjok]

Originally Posted by Snowman

This was in just the first 6 months of 2021. And in a growing market. They were on pace to probably do upwards of 350 million in revenue this year on ebay. You're fooling yourself if you think eBay doesn't care about that revenue.

You might have a more compelling argument if you weren't conflating PWCCs revenue with eBay's revenue. PWCC may make $350MM in a year, but eBay only captures a small portion of that. From their 10-K:

The majority of our revenue comes from a take rate on the GMV of transactions closed on our Marketplace and StubHub platforms.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by carlsonjok

You might have a more compelling argument if you weren't conflating PWCCs revenue with eBay's revenue. PWCC may make $350MM in a year, but eBay only captures a small portion of that. From their 10-K:

The majority of our revenue comes from a take rate on the GMV of transactions closed on our Marketplace and StubHub platforms.

I'm not conflating the two. I was making a point about the sheer volume that PWCC does. I also pointed out how much ebay earns from those sales later in the post.

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by Snowman

This was in just the first 6 months of 2021. And in a growing market. They were on pace to probably do upwards of 350 million in revenue this year on ebay. You're fooling yourself if you think eBay doesn't care about that revenue. It was one of their top 10 accounts in all of eBay. They care. This decision was 100% discussed with and strategized by all of the top executives at eBay. Probably at great length. Their legal team, CEO, and CFO all thought deeply about this issue without question, whatever that issue was. Obviously, ebay will do just fine without PWCC. They'd even do just fine without the entire sports card industry. But you shouldn't conflate that with the idea that they don't care about losing one of their largest accounts or that they couldn't be bothered by the idea of PWCC creating a competing platform to take away "their" customers. I promise you, they care.

I work for a company that has a similar grip on a different market like eBay has in theirs (and our market cap is triple that of eBay's). There are a handful of other companies that try to do what we do, but none of them come even remotely close to our capabilities and volume. We are orders of magnitude larger than all of our competitors combined. But I promise you, we definitely care what they're doing and we pay close attention to all of them. Only a fool wouldn't.

Say what you want about PWCC, but scandals aside, one thing is certain. They've built a remarkable brand in this hobby in a fairly short amount of time. They have catapulted themselves to the very top of the sports card industry, and the owners are extremely driven and creative. Perhaps all these rumors about them are true, in which case they'll burn down in flames. But if they're not true, then I wouldn't want to bet against them. They took consignments to a new level. They invented the vault. They launched a premier auction platform and broke records right out of the gate. They've built arguably the best database for card sales that exists online, and they're launching a new platform to compete against eBay with lower tier cards next month. They continue to innovate more and more every year. People like that don't just stop creating new products and expanding. They don't just suddenly become content. They are greedy. They are driven by the desire to succeed and will pursue it at any cost. Today, it's sports cards, but tomorrow it might be sports cards and comics, and the next day it's cards, comics, Pokémon, video games, and coins. I promise you, eBay execs aren't stupid. They see the threat for what it is, and it's not just a few million dollars per year in lost revenue.

I'll make a prediction. Come back and visit this thread in 5 years. Either they'll be in jail, or they'll be a huge competitor to eBay in this space within 5 years, and they will have already expanded into other collectibles markets by then as well, and will continue to develop more tools and resources for the market and their customers as well.

My comment had nothing to do with PWCC's awesomeness. I will leave all of that up to you. You inaccurately portrayed PWCC's absence as a seller on eBay as some material event for eBay. Despite your suggesting you know the daily operations of both companies, this separation is a much larger deal to PWCC than it is to eBay. PWCC paid a very deeply discounted fee to eBay and had a great deal of support within eBay. Even if they were to have done 350 million in sales this year the revenue is not something that impacts eBay's EPS.

And contrary to what you think eBay cares about what they actually care about is that PWCC, who is still under a federal investigation, had been engaged in shill bidding and the impact that would have on them should they continue to look the other way. I doubt it was a very timely or difficult decision to cut ties and make that very public announcement.